


The Walking Flood

by Del (goddessdel)



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 17:03:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13252680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddessdel/pseuds/Del
Summary: Even before the walking flood, they were hard to miss.





	The Walking Flood

**Author's Note:**

> Written: 11/19/14 - 12/14/17
> 
> Just a bit of fluff I've been working on for a while. An outsider's perspective of River and Eleven.
> 
> I meant to post it for the New Year, but happy holidays and happy New Year, belatedly!
> 
> Un-beta'd, so all mistakes are my own.

Even before the walking flood, they were hard to miss.

 

The painter was struggling to capture the kaleidoscope fountain, marveling at the sudden rainbow effect of the water in the light, when the man appeared.

 

He rushed over to the fountain and leaned blithely over its lip, nearly falling in until a small hand snagged him by his collar and rescued him. The woman's grip was firm but familiar, as though she were used to his clumsy over-exuberance.

 

When she stepped into the painter's line of sight, she immediately stole all the fascinating rainbow light for herself. She was dressed as though she were fresh from safari, all jodhpurs and riding boots, utility belt and light blouse. She was like a lion on the savannah, strong and proud, her hair a wild mane around her face, golden and majestic. Deceptively casual and relaxed in a way that showed just how dangerous she would be if she bared her teeth.

 

But her teeth weren't snapping. Instead, she shook her curls out in a fond, exasperated gesture, smiling up at the tall, gangly young man in front of her.

 

They were a study in opposites. He was dressed as though a professor or his student, all tweed and bowties despite his youthful appearance. He spun immediately toward the lion-woman and stumbled a step into her, far too close.

 

Neither of them stepped back.

 

Instead they remained there, pressed nearly flush as they spoke in tones that did not carry over the rush of the fountain. They had eyes only for each other, as though the rest of the bustling courtyard did not exist. The man brushed his fringe out of his face with a careless toss of his head and said something, eyes warm. The woman's laugh echoed, velvety and enticing, just over the spray.

 

The painter began adding them into the painting without consciously deciding. Careful strokes trying to capture the vibrancy of her hair. The love in their eyes.

 

They conversed a moment longer, occasionally gesturing toward the mostly forgotten fountain, until the man plopped down on the ledge. The woman joined him more measuredly, even more his opposite in grace. He leaned back and swept his hand into the pool of churning water, examining the iridescent liquid gathered on his finger before promptly sticking it into his mouth.

 

The woman's nose wrinkled but she seemed more amused than surprised. She slapped him lightly, companionably, on the shoulder and pulled out a scanner from her utility belt, which she ran over the water.

 

They both talked with their entire bodies. Leaning in to one another, shaking their heads, waving their hands (although his gestures were a good deal more exaggerated and ungainly than hers). There was a sense of grandiosity to their every interaction, and yet it somehow came across as comfortingly mundane. As though this might be a snapshot of any moment between them.

 

They didn't immediately notice the water levels rise - so caught up in their debate. For that matter, neither did the painter - so caught up in watching them.

 

But once they noticed, it would have been impossible for every eye to not focus on them. They sprang into action, leaping up with grace and speed - turning to each other without even needing to form words as they quickly took charge, carefully maneuvering the frightened populace back and toward the safety of higher ground as the water walked right over the lip of the fountain and splashed messily to the ground.

 

The painter lost them for a moment in the crowd, in the rush to gather up paints and canvas and escape the rainbow waves inching ominously forward, extending liquid tendrils in careful, measured steps that seemed far too intelligent to be reassuring. There was an odd whirring that stood out even against the background noise of terrified people fleeing, and a clear shout, "River, catch!"

 

The painter could see her hair, flitting amongst the crowd, and the occasional flourish of a long, ungainly, tweed-covered arm. Just glimpses as the waves started to crawl over grass and up the nearest buildings, entirely engulfing a street cart, which quickly became indistinguishable from the rest of the brightly hued, gelatinous mass. It was a flood, certainly, but a very measured one.

 

"With me, Doctor!"

 

Against the panicked chatter, their voices came through calm and clear - a certain level of command and assurance that was soothing, even as one ran in the opposite direction. Of course, a doctor would be calm in a crisis - they were trained for that, after all. Of the lion-woman's capabilities, there could never have been any doubt.

 

A Brahms concerto began to play, the music drifting through the square on the heels of those fleeing.

 

It felt like hours - but was probably only minutes - before the water slowly began to recede, shrinking back towards the fountain, melting away from buildings like sherbet.

 

They were there, of course, the painter's opposites couple, somehow back at the edge of the fountain, peering severely down at the gurgling water. The man seemed to be giving it quite a stern talking to, while the woman kept one eye on him and the other on the courtyard, where people were tentatively reclaiming the mottled, damp ground.

 

They were holding hands, casually but intently, as though they'd naturally reached for one another without realizing but had no intentions of letting go. Their other hands held electronics, scanners of some sort.

 

The painter crept as close as daring allowed without drawing attention, careful to stay on the path and avoid any oddly hued mud.

 

"Look, I'm sure you're a perfectly friendly bio-activated Kertesian photosynthetic diatom chromophore," the man was saying, with a strict voice and serious, suddenly much older face, "but you really can't just eat whatever you like. You could've eaten someone - and you can't tell me that cement was all that tasty, was it? All those nasty chemicals. No, no, much better if you just stay put until we can give you a lift back to your own planet, eh?"

 

"It's stabilized," the woman declared, interrupting him with easy familiarity. "Should be safe to move, once we get the TARDIS."

 

The man straightened, turning from the fountain and noticing the wide-eyed crowd at last, "Oh, you can come out now! It's all right - nothing to worry about. The water just felt like taking a bit of a walk, as you do, but it's all settled back in now."

 

After that unsettling speech that was clearly meant to be reassuring, he turned from the crowd to grin cockily at the lion-woman, as though nothing were amiss. "Told you: Bach for peas, Brahms for hyper-accelerated algae."

 

"Yes, sweetie, it seems quite content." She rolled her eyes. "And we're just pretending that your first suggestion wasn't 'Take me to the River,' are we?"

 

His look softened, his features regaining that boyish affect. He shrugged, ducking his head to look at her through his fringe. "It always works for me."

 

They swayed into each other - magnetized - still holding hands. She practically glowed next to her partner - for they were so clearly in love that was the only possible descriptor between them. "Stop it," but she was smiling, that glorious sunshine-from-clouds smile she seemed to save just for him.

 

The painter hurried to get the easel set up again, scrambling for the right paints to capture these ethereal but ephemeral beings - clearly gods walking among men.

 

When they kissed, they kissed as though the rest of the world had fallen away at their feet. As though the flood and people and polychromatic water were but figments of imagination and only the two of them were real.

 

The painter's hand flew across canvas, trying in vain to capture something of the perfection with which the opposites couple fit one another, her curves and his angles flowing and ebbing together in perfect synchronicity.

 

Around them, humanity began to go about their normal lives, the peril of the walking flood already fading, unnoticed by their saviors, intertwined in the multihued light of the cascading fountain.

**Author's Note:**

> The song the Doctor references is "take me to the river" by the Talking Heads.


End file.
